Toronto council appoints activist Ceta Ramkhalawansingh as new councillor for Trinity-Spadina

In a vote that split down ideological lines, Toronto City Council voted Monday to appoint Ceta Ramkhalawansingh, an activist and retired civil servant, as the new councillor for the downtown ward of Trinity-Spadina.

Adam Vaughan, the elected councillor, stepped down earlier this year. He was elected as Liberal MP for Trinity-Spadina in a byelection last week.

A wedge of left and centrist councillors banded together to back Ms. Ramkhalawansingh, the City of Toronto’s former manager of diversity management and community engagement, to fill his seat.

The vote was one of two held at City Hall Monday to fill vacant council seats. In the second, council appointed lawyer and longtime federal Liberal James Maloney in Etobicoke-Lakeshore.

Ms. Ramkhalawansingh, who retired after 29 years with the city in 2010, won on the second ballot. She defeated Robert Lunney, a retired police chief in both Edmonton and the Peel Region, 22 votes to 18. Mr. Lunney had the support of most of council’s right wing, including Mayor Rob Ford and his brother, Councillor Doug Ford.

Alicia Pang, a well-known political Tweeter and self-described semi joke candidate, also received a second ballot vote.

Ms. Ramkhalawansingh will serve until the end of the current council term on November 30, 2014. She told reporters after the vote she has no plans to run for re-election. She will, however, collect a city council salary, in addition to her City of Toronto pension, for the next three and half months.

“I’ll be donating some of it, not all of it” to charity, she said, “because I think you should be paid for the work that you do.”

Mr. Maloney, the city’s other new councillor, also ruled a future municipal bid. “I’ve got a legal career which I’ve spent 18 years building up. It’s a hard thing to transition out of.”

Mr. Maloney, a partner at the firm Hughes Amy, defeated Agnes Potts, a former city of Etobicoke councillor, 22 votes to 15. In Ward 5 he replaces Peter Milczyn, now a Liberal MPP.

Before stepping down, Mr. Vaughan was one of Mayor Ford’s most vocal critics. He once called Ford Nation a “failed state.” However, Ms. Ramkhalawansingh said she had no immediate plans to duke it out with the mayor.

“As long as the mayor supports the initiatives in Ward 20 then I think that I’ll be satisfied with that.”

Mr. Maloney, too, said he intended to work with everyone on council, the mayor included. “That’s my goal.”

There are already 18 candidates registered to contest Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina, in October’s municipal election. Five more have signed up to compete for Ward 5. The most recent of those is Kinga Surma, who registered Monday afternoon, shortly after finishing third in the council vote to replace Mr. Milczyn, her former boss.

Mr. Milczyn fired Ms. Surma, a federal Conservative, from his office staff last year after she worked for his opponent, Doug Holyday, in a provincial byelection.